To be Gifted, Or Not to be Gifted, That is the Question...

I have a quandary. It is a Mason-related quandary, as they frequently are. I had a phone conference with his teacher yesterday. Don't worry- it was a good thing. It's conference week at school, and he's doing so well that she didn't even request an actual in-the-classroom sit down, just a phone chat to let me know how he's doing. The good news is, he's really smart, excellent reader, great at math, enthusiastic student- all stuff that made me very proud. He's so smart in fact, that she wants to give him accelerated work to see if he would do well in the gifted program. Therein lies the quandary.

See, I know Mason's smart. And I know he's totally got the brainpower for the gifted program. The problem is, I don't know that he's got the motivation. Because even though he's smart as all get out, he's also laaaaaaaaaazy. That boy doesn't want to do one speck more work than he absolutely has to. And he will rush through it like his pencil's on fire to get it done so he can move on to the stuff he wants to do. Stuff like watching Sponge Bob, or playing Lego Universe. Nothing but the loftiest pursuits for my boy. And homework is a nightly battle that often ends in smartmouth attitude (his), yelling (mine), frustration (both), tears (mostly his), and drinking (usually mine).

And quite frankly, I'm not sure I'm ready to amp that battle up any more. I mean, obviously I want to give him every academic opportunity, push him to succeed, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera..... But really, I just don't know how much more of the homework-related nonsense I can take. Lord knows I spend enough time fussing at him. I'm not sure I want to invite the opportunity for more!

We're, of course, going for it. What the hell else was I going to do? Tell his teacher, "Ummm thanks for wanting to challenge my child and help him achieve more academically, but I'm going to have to pass. I don't feel like arguing with him about homework." Yeah, right. So we'll see how it goes. Hopefully, he'll enjoy the challenge and find the work interesting. Maybe. If not, we might be the first parents ever to keep our kid out of the gifted program because it's too much trouble!